"Oh, Kathleen, I didn't know I was going to raise such a breeze! Perhaps you had better not go if Mrs. Carew objects," Helen said, uneasily.
Kathleen turned on her a face crimson with angry passion.
"I'd go if she killed me for it!" she cried, with an imperious stamp of her dainty foot. "Who is that woman to forbid my going to places of amusement, like other girls?" She rang the bell violently for Susette, and added: "Say nothing before my maid, Helen; but on our way to the theater I'll tell you how wickedly Alpine treated me this afternoon."
Presently Alpine, peeping through her door, saw the two girls going away, Helen a little uneasy looking, the other proud, defiant, beautiful as a dream.
"She will meet Ralph Chainey, after all," Alpine muttered, in a fury.
It was midnight when Mrs. Fox's carriage stopped again at the Carew mansion, and George handed Kathleen out and rang the bell for her at her own door.
The windows were closed, and not the faintest gleam of light shone through them. George waited a few moments, then rang the bell again.
"Every one must be asleep, they are so long coming," said Kathleen, shivering in the cold night air.